Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | V.S. Naipaul | 1972 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 2 | The Great Railway Bazaar | 1975 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 3 | The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas | 1979 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 4 | To the Ends of the Earth: The Selected Travels | 1980 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 5 | The Kingdom by the Sea | 1983 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 6 | Sailing Through China | 1984 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 7 | The Imperial Way: By Rail from Peshawar to Chittagong | 1985 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 8 | Patagonia Revisited | 1985 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 9 | Sunrise with Seamonsters | 1985 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 10 | Nowhere Is a Place | 1986 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 11 | Riding the Iron Rooster | 1988 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 12 | Travelling the World | 1990 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 13 | The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific | 1992 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 14 | The Pillars of Hercules | 1995 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 15 | Slow Trains to Simla | 1996 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 16 | Sir Vidia’s Shadow | 1998 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 17 | Nurse Wolf and Dr. Sacks | 2001 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 18 | Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town | 2002 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 19 | 2 Stars | 2005 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 20 | Ghost Train to the Eastern Star | 2008 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 21 | The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road | 2011 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 22 | The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari | 2013 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 23 | Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads | 2015 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 24 | Figures in a Landscape: People and Places | 2018 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
| 25 | On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey | 2019 | Paul Theroux | Buy |
Paul Theroux’s non-fiction output is dominated by travel writing. His first major travel book, The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), set the template for much of what followed: long overland journeys documented with sharp observation and literary skill. He returned to train travel repeatedly, with Riding the Iron Rooster (China), The Old Patagonian Express (the Americas), and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (a return trip along his original Bazaar route).
Beyond trains, his travel books cover Africa (Dark Star Safari, The Last Train to Zona Verde), the Mediterranean (The Pillars of Hercules), the Pacific (The Happy Isles of Oceania), and Mexico (On the Plain of Snakes). He also wrote Sir Vidia’s Shadow, a memoir about his complicated friendship with V.S. Naipaul. With 25 non-fiction titles, the travel writing alone would make for a significant career.